went to his room in tears. The words of supplication gathered around the word "stranger" rang in his memory. After relating the circumstance the lawyer adds: "In public ministrations never forget the 'stranger within thy gates.' You will touch some heart, which will vibrate to the appeal."

LXXIV. The Arithmetic of Heaven. DEUT. vi. 4. "The Lord our God is one Lord."

DANIEL WEBSTER had been attending Divine service in the Park-street Church, Boston. It is a staunch, orthodox church, and at that time was not in high favour with the Unitarians. Coming away from church, he was met by a Unitarian gentleman, who said to him, "So you have been to church, where they teach that three times one are one!" Mr. Webster replied with that solemn voice of his, now more intensely solemn than usual, “My friend, you and I do not understand the arithmetic of heaven."

If any man less than Mr. Webster had made this reply, it might be considered an evasion of the difficulty suggested. Mr. Webster had been attending a church where the doctrine of the Trinity is taught, Three Persons in one Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Three in One. No human intellect can comprehend the mode of such existence; and some there are who reject the truth, because it does not seem to them reasonable that One should be Three, and Three should be One.

LXXV. Loving God. DEUT. vi. 5. "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."

SIR DAVID BREWSTER was an earnest searcher after light. A memorable incident we give in the words of his loving biographer. She is recording a conversation which her father had with her sister-in-law, Mrs. Macpherson, who says: "I had a long talk with dear papa upon the suffering of Christ, from which we passed on to speaking of the gratitude due to God. We spoke of the possibility of feeling any love towards God, and agreed that such a sentiment of love as is possible between man and man was impossible between man and God. How can

we love Him,' he said, 'One whom we have not seen? We admire Him in His works, and trust from the wisdom seen in these that He is wise in all His dealings; but how can we LOVE Him?"" After this conversation, his daughterin-law, being herself led to understand how alone the love of the unseen Christ can be shed abroad in the heart by the working of the Holy Spirit, felt that she must confess this change in her views and feelings. "He listened most attentively, and when I had finished, took me in his arms, kissed me, and said, in such a child-like manner, ' Go now then, and pray that I may know it too.'"

LXXVI. A Question for Parents.

DEUT. vi. 7.

"And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children." IT is related of Ben Ezra, that when yet a child he asked his teacher to be instructed in the law of God; but he was told that he was yet too young to be taught these sacred mysteries. "But, master," said the boy, "I have been in the burial-ground, and I have measured the graves, and I find some shorter than myself. Now if I should be taken away by death before I know the word of God, what will become of me after?"

LXXVII. The Haus-Segen. DEUT. vi. 9.

"And thou

shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." THE mountainous region in the south-east of Bavaria is the home of a race of people, simple, pious, and primitive in their habits, even to the present day. It is the common custom of the Bavarian peasants to affix the "Haus-Segen " to their house doors. This is a paper, with the outline of a heart printed in the centre, and surrounded by a circlet of smaller hearts. Each heart contains a prayer or some sacred verse, and the paper is sometimes decorated with tints of red, blue, and yellow.

LXXVIII. Scripture Texts. DEUT. xi. 18.

"There

fore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes."

TEXTS of Scripture used to be painted on the doors of the Puritans, and over their fireplaces. Texts used to be

stamped on kettles and skillets, wrought into garments, and even carved on the wooden cradles. The language of the Bible was with them the language of every-day life.

LXXIX. Duty of Liberality. DEUT. xv. 7.

"Thou

shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother."

MR. SHERMAN had the cause of the poor and needy very much at heart. On a Friday morning's service, when his congregation was, as it often was, a scanty one, the subject was Elisha multiplying the poor widow's oil to pay the demands of her creditors. He depicted the need of poor widows, especially of ministers' widows, often left utterly destitute, and mentioned a case just then known to him, where £25 pounds were needed to apprentice a minister's son; and with such effect, that the dozen or two people present subscribed £18 before leaving the hall, more than enough to complete the sum required being sent in afterwards. Mr. Sherman was himself a man of great benevolence. He gave liberally himself. We are told that his house was like the house of the relieving officer, besieged by needy applicants, and a deserving case was never sent unhelped away. The old people in the almshouses were often gladdened by parcels of tea and sugar or by small presents of money, and he never failed to remember them in his Christmas gifts.

LXXX. Succour Men in Distress. DEUT. XV. II. "For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land."

I WAS very much struck with an old Englishman that I knew, who used to do a great deal of amateur preaching and amateur teaching, visiting jails and poorhouses, who said to me one day, "I make them understand, wherever I go, that I am never going to give them anything." I said to myself, "That being the general rule of your ministration, I would not give the turn of my hand for all the good that you will do." A man who determines that he will not succour men that are in physical distress, through all the range of his ministration, will not do any good.

I did not then believe that he did any good; I do not believe it now; and since he is dead, I do not think he believes it,

LXXXI. Moral Training of the Young. DEUT. xxxii. 46. "And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law."

THE strong feeling which Erasmus always had in regard to the careful moral training of the young appears in his "Manual." "Let parents," he says, "who are Christians, not utter words before their children which give the lie to their faith. Let not the Christian mother indulge in unreasonable grief after bereavement, and let the father beware of praising before his children the man who has made a fortune by doubtful means."

LXXXII. Venture on Him. DEUT. xxxiii. 27. "Underneath are the everlasting arms."

He

I ONCE saw a lad on the roof of a very high building where several men were at work. He was gazing about with apparent unconcern, when his foot slipped, and he fell. In falling he caught by a rope, and hung suspended in mid air, where he could sustain himself but a short time. perfectly knew his situation, and expected in a few minutes to be dashed on the stones below. At this moment a kind and powerful man rushed out of the house, and standing beneath him with extended arms called out, "Let go of the rope; I will catch you." "I can't do it," said the boy, "Let go, and I promise you shall escape unhurt." The boy hesitated for a moment, and then quitting his hold, dropped easily and safely into the arms of his deliverer. Here is a simple act of faith. The poor boy knew his danger; he saw his deliverer, and heard his voice. He believed him, and letting go every other dependence and hope, he dropped into his arms.

"Venture on Him, venture freely,

Let no other trust intrude;
None but Jesus

Can do helpless sinners good."

LXXXIII.

A Farewell Scene. DEUT. Xxxiv. 8. “And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plain of Moab thirty days."

ROBERT MOFFAT laboured for more than fifty years in South Africa, and chiefly at Kuruman, amongst the Bechwanas. On Sunday, March 20th, 1870, he preached for the last time in the Kuruman church. In all that great congregation there were few of his own contemporaries left. The older people were for the most part children when he first came among them. With a pathetic grace, he pleaded with those who still remained unbelieving amid the gospel privileges they had now enjoyed for so many years, and he commended to the grace of God those converts who had been his joy and crown. It was an impressive close to an impressive career. On the Friday following the aged missionary and his wife took their departure. As they came out of their house and walked to their wagon, they were beset by crowds of the Bechwanas, each longing for a hand-shake and another word of farewell; and as the wagon drove away it was followed by all who could walk, and a long and pitiful wail arose, enough to melt the hardest heart.

LXXXIV. Ruskin's Bible.

Josн. i. 8.
JOSH.

"This book of

the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night."

JOHN RUSKIN writes thus in his "Outlines of Scenes and Thoughts in my Past Life": "I have just opened my oldest (in use) Bible; a small, closely, and very neatly. printed volume it is, printed in Edinburgh by Sir D. Hunter, Blain & J. Bruce, in 1816. Yellow now with age, and flexible, but not unclean, with much use, except that the lowest corners of the pages at Kings viii., and Deuteronomy xxxii. are worn somewhat thin and dark, the learning of these two chapters having cost me much pains. My mother's list of the chapters with which, thus learned, she established my soul in life, has just fallen out of it. I will take what indulgence the incurious reader can give me for printing the list thus accidentally occurrent.